May 20, 2009

Top Chef with Teanna- Steamed Red Snapper with Chanterelles and Rock Shrimp over a Butternut Squash Sauce

Jack and I have decided to do a fun project: Each week, we will cook a winning dish from Top Chef.

Oh yes, my friends. We will.

Although we don't have the culinary background to hack it on the line with the likes of Fabio, Stefan, Harold, Hong, Marcel, Tiffani, or Dave (I'm not your bitch, bitch!), I do have the chops to follow a recipe word for word and make something quite tasty!

So we'll pack up our knives and head over to our Top Chef Kitchen, which is NOT furnished by the makers of Glad® and does NOT have glowing appliances by the makers of GE™.

So I guess you don't have to worry about endless product placements.

We will cook through the winning dishes from Seasons 1-5, with a brief pause when Season 6 comes back on air. When that happens, we will follow the season, and then resume the remaining recipes when the season is over.

Unfortunately, you will not be able to gaze into Tom's gorgeous blue eyes or stare longingly at Padma's glowing skin. Gail's effusive smile will not light up our kitchens and guest judges such as Anthony Bourdain cannot provide us with constructive criticism such as "that dish was so ugly, it doesn't even deserve to be prison food".

You will instead receive my witty (I hope) commentary providing a bit of background about the episode and our trials and tribulations about cooking each dish.

Like take this dish, for example. Jack said he would cook it so that I could photograph it as soon as I got home from work so that I could get a good picture of it in the sunlight.

Instead, Jack cut off the tip of his finger while making it.

Actually, he cut off a millimeter of skin from his thumb while slicing the butternut squash, called me at work freaking out, so I rushed home to take care of him to find him on the couch watching The Dark Knight with a piece of toilet paper wrapped around it as our dog lay on his lap. I ran to the couch to see if he was ok, and the piece had magically healed itself.

I cooked the rest of the dish.

This amazing, delicious, healthy dish. Harold Dieterle, the winner of Top Chef Season 1 (and the chef/owner of the restaurant Perilla in New York City) actually won the 1st Top Chef Challenge ever. The challenge of the episode, titled "Who Deserves to Be Here", was to basically cook a fantastic meal to serve to your peers. Harold won with this dish - a steamed Thai Snapper atop braised Brussel sprout leaves and a butternut squash puree topped with chanterelle mushrooms and rock shrimp.

Sweat garlic and shallots in 1 tbsp olive oil over medium-low
heat while butternut squash is roasting. When squash is done, add squash meat.
Cover with chicken stock and simmer 10 minutes. Blend and add butter.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Teanna, this is such a fun idea! I am a huge fan of Top Chef! This dish looks incredible - you did such a great job recreating it! Can't wait till Marcel's recipes, I think despite his personality, his cooking was my favorite, with foams and all :)

Haha poor Jack! That's hilarious that you raced home to take care of him and he was just fine by that point watching a movie. Well maybe not so hilarious to you at the time. ;) I looove Top Chef. Can't wait for it to come back. Great idea to make all these dishes.